Your responses — and there were dozens of them — ran the gamut from traditional to highly unusual, general to specific, funny to touching.

The unofficial award for most unusual goes to Liorah Peoples of Muskegon, who wrote about her dad, Jeff Peoples, teaching her to race go-karts. "Throughout this experience, I have learned how to align tires; how to check air pressure; how to run the right line; and finally how to smash my kart."

I feel comfortable stating that's something most of us probably didn't learn from dad.

Most touching to me was the memory shared by Michael Lee of Brooklyn about his father, Lloyd Lee. He wrote, in part: "My dad served our country in the US Army's 25th Infantry Division in Vietnam, and he has recently begun talking about his harrowing experiences in war. A couple weeks ago he asked me to digitize some of his old Polaroid pictures. This has been a great privilege and joy for me, as it has opened doors to more of these meaningful conversations between us."

The photo gallery above contains my favorite entries from each of our eight newspaper markets. Read through them for inspiration, and feel free to share your thoughts about your own father or father-figure in the comments below.